Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-07-12

petent Court; he had all opportunities to
call witnesses and all the processes of the |
law and the power of the State to compel
attendance; his consular advisor knew
precisely what steps to take to present his
defense and secure him all possible defenses
if he had any. His own statements show
that he contemplated the murder Of the
hired man, but physical facts utterly dis
proved the story Of the accidental shooting
of the woman. Holding the gun as he
illustrated, it was simply impossible for
the shot to hare reached the woman where
it brought her to death.
Under such showing ,iaror inter-
rupted the course of justice by declaring
the murderer innocent, and Forced eleven
jurors little less weak to compromise on
a verdict of guilt with the penalty of i'm
prisonEpent. 1t is incoRceivable, if the
juror believed the defendant guiltless, how
he honestly came to confess him muir
derer thereafter on compromise verdict
andstill more astounding, that the mischief
once done, he should coneede that he was
wrong.
AS the REcoRD-UNIoN yesterday said,
the mob that hanged Hong Di cannot be
excused. Its offense has added to the
catalogue of shames that tarnish the rec
ord of the State. 1t took life illegally,
barbarously, that should have been for
feited to the law bya jury with backbone
convictions of duty. The one and only
relief to its outrage is the fact that it
hanged one deserving of it. The death
penalty in such q case fits the criminal.
To temper such crime as his with the
mercitul chances" attaching to imprison-
ment, is to excuse his offense. But so far
as the pursuit and trial of Hong Di were
concerned, the facts demand that no mis-
conceptions shall be formed upon the basis
of hysterical CALCULATIONS, that have been
made, that the defendant was not given a
fair trial. On the contrary, it has de-
veloped that his trial was so free from any
element of unfairness that, though con-
fessedly guilty, that. though admitting
killing by misadventure while murder.
ously trying to kill another, and thus al
least committing a homicide of some de-
gree, he actually found juror who voted
him to be innocent, and jury that saved
his neck from the lawful hangman.
The Colusa mob after the trial outraged
the law and shamed the State by its Grim
inal proceedings; but that the Colusa
community did not afford the assassin a
fair trial; that it denied him or his con-
sular adviser any right, or forced the latter
to abandon the wretch; that the Court
robbed him of any privilege; that he was
rushed to trial and railroaded to Judgment,
is not true. Any utterances of that charac-
ter are born either of incapacity to conceive
justly, of moral obliquity, or the jaundiced
conceptions of diseased brain. Murder
ers have been very leniently treated in
California, and precious few" have met
their just desserts. 1t is because of the
many previous delays of the law; of mis-
carriages of justice without number OF
technical trifing and wearisome postpone
ments; of legal escapes through the meshes
of Court proceedings and the favoring Of
criminals, that such assassins as Hong Di
and Ang Tai Duck, Pete Olsen and Simon
Raten have been encouraged, and such
blistering shames as the Colusa lynchine
have been invited.